"I know that after my death a pile of rubbish will be heaped on my grave, but the wind of History will sooner or later sweep it away without mercy."
-
Y'know, over on Lemmygrad, a lib interloper asked if this was a legitimate quote from the man of steel himself and I had to dig up a Russian-language book (there is no english translation afaik) and to stumble my way through the cyrillic to find the source for this.
Whoops, sorry! Yep I did.
This quote is according to Molotov's recollection. From Сто сорок бесед с Молотовым (140 Conversations with Molotov) by Felix Chuev:
Stalin himself, I remember, said during the war: “I know that after my death, my grave will be piled with rubbish. But the winds of history will ruthlessly dispel it!
Being able to read Cyrillic helps a lot, the text is similar enough to polish that I can fully understand it.
there's a moment on the journey out of liberalism where you finally read Stalin's words and go, "wait, this is the guy they're saying all that wild shit about?"
https://redsails.org/stalin-and-ludwig/
https://redsails.org/stalin-and-wells/
There's a reason they do everything in their power to convince people to avoid reading anything he actually wrote and forming their own opinion.
It's become even more imperative that they try and get people not to do that the longer their propaganda has gone on, because the moment a person does engage with him in a proper academic and mature way is the moment that it becomes clear how much is pure propaganda. This is deeply damaging to liberalism because it sets in light just how much should be questioned, it highlights the scale of it all.
Stalin: You exaggerate. We have no especially high esteem for everything American, but we do respect the efficiency that the Americans display in everything in industry, in technology, in literature and in life. We never forget that the U.S.A. is a capitalist country. But among the Americans there are many people who are mentally and physically healthy who are healthy in their whole approach to work, to the job on hand. That efficiency, that simplicity, strikes a responsive chord in our hearts. Despite the fact that America is a highly developed capitalist country, the habits prevailing in its industry, the practices existing in productive processes, have an element of democracy about them, which cannot be said of the old European capitalist countries, where the haughty spirit of the feudal aristocracy is still alive.
...
That cannot be said of America, which is a country of “free colonists,” without landlords and without aristocrats. Hence the sound and comparatively simple habits in American productive life. Our business executives of working-class origin who have visited America at once noted this trait. They relate, not without a certain agreeable surprise, that on a production job in America it is difficult to distinguish an engineer from a worker by outward appearance. That pleases them, of course.
My immediate reaction to this, is that these statements both seem to become less & less true as the American project continues onwards.
H.G Wells is an OG one true leftist hexbearite:
"It seems to me that I am more to the Left than you, Mr. Stalin; I think the old system is nearer to its end than you think."
Aside from that, Stalin is such a great orator... However, his skill in speaking can't be put only down to an ability to speak plainly and clearly - rather it is the solidness of his theories and robust historical knowledge that makes it easy for him to speak with such authority and precision.
That is why liberal politicians fail so horribly in their seethrough speeches. They are not backed by actual facts or historically materialist theory. By nature of their juxtaposition as defenders of capital AND supposed servants of the people, they can be nothing other than duplicitous.
I wager that there is not a mainstream politician in the U.S or the U.K that could survive even 20 minutes questioning by Stalin without being made to look a bludgeoned fool. Biden would last about 14 seconds before keeling over and dying.
I'm fucking grumpy so if I see any goddamn liberal shit in here I'm using the banhammer don't fuck with me
I read through it earlier and it made feel high because I kept thinking I’d read that argument and it was just another person repeating the same bullshit
It really feels like there’s a point where amerikkkan propaganda destroys history and I think we’ve reached that with Stalin
It's a matter of quantity of people the propaganda reaches.
In terms of quality, socialists repeatedly have success making an impact on this topic on other people. Right now there are people reading some of the comments in this post, particularly the longer comments, and they are genuinely being impacted by some of the things they learn or points made. Often silently.
The main issue is primarily the quantity of people that their propaganda reaches over the quantity of people that socialists can try to educate in a deeper and more meaningful way. I think it's worth looking outside the US though, across Europe most takes are significantly more measured, and across parts of the global south you get views completely untainted by the US propaganda because it doesn't reach them at all. Don't despair.
Thats one of the things he generally did bad on, but he did massively improve the qol of impoverished queer folks, and improved the qol of queer folks in liberated territories.
saying that someone who recriminalised homosexuality did nothing wrong 'because he improved the general quality of life' sounds suspiciously like queer folk just being the cost of doing business
Yes Stalin was homophobic. He deserves criticism for this. Welcome to most people and countries (especially the Christian ones). I find it incredible that despite the fucking travesty that is the quality of life for queer folk in the USA, especially for black; indigenous; non-white peoples, certain folk have the gall to look back at a man born over 100 years ago, son to a poor family in a nation under the boot of Russian Empire and criticize him for not having perfect values when the common narrative of him as a monster is disrupted. Of course he wasn't perfect, of course he deserves criticism where criticism is due. However, there are a significant set of actions which deserve praise, especially relative to his common depiction.
That being said, it's not as if socialist governments that do well when it comes to queer rights are lauded for their efforts. The DDR made significant strides for the queer community yet is rarely (if ever) applauded in the west for this. Cuba still manages to get attacked on this front despite having the most progressive stance on the matter today. This criticism in this context never feels in good faith, it feels desperate and reaching for a way to conflate socialists and fascists.
Welcome to most people and countries (especially the Christian ones).|
I find it incredible that despite the fucking travesty that is the quality of life for queer folk in the USA
i wasn't comparing stalins policies to other countries, people or the USA, i was commenting on 'stalin did nothing wrong'
certain folk have the gall to look back at a man born over 100 years ago, son to a poor family in a nation under the boot of Russian Empire and criticize him for not having perfect values when the common narrative of him as a monster is disrupted
i wasnt commenting on him not being a monster, i was commenting on 'stalin did nothing wrong'
That being said, it’s not as if socialist governments that do well when it comes to queer rights are lauded for their efforts. The DDR made significant strides for the queer community yet is rarely (if ever) applauded in the west for this. Cuba still manages to get attacked on this front despite having the most progressive stance on the matter today. This criticism in this context never feels in good faith, it feels desperate and reaching for a way to conflate socialists and fascists.
i wasnt commenting on socialists or their policies, i was commenting on 'stalin did nothing wrong'
congratulations, you discovered the flaw in an extremely serious statement made on the internet which is in no way a meme meant almost entirely to agitate propagandized libs
enjoy this portrait I drew of you as an award:
i didnt figure it was until folks actually defended it seemingly completely genuinely
you can tell because "its true, generally good guy that made great strides for lgbtq folks" is actually also not an extremely serious statement
This criticism in this context never feels in good faith, it feels desperate and reaching for a way to conflate socialists and fascists.
never actually accepting criticism of inhumane policies as being done in good faith when its the wrong people being criticised undermines the whole 'critical support' schpiel
i dont think socialists and fascists are totally just the same thing, i dont think leftists are actually all closeted homophobes or even half as likely to be as the right
i think that framing one guy who pushed extreme anti lgbtq policies as having done nothing wrong is unhealthy and disturbing, especially since ive seen several hexbears completely unaware of it his anti LGBTQ policies, or completely convinced that him having said policies was actually just a shitlib lie
That is true, but I still like it as a retort to lib criticism of Stalin that almost always involves something that didn't really happen anyway. As far as Stalin being homophobic, I don't know anything about it, but I do know that he knew that the false scarcity and false precariousness created by his capitalist and feudal enemies is what causes reactionary thought to flourish.
I still like it as a retort to lib criticism of Stalin that almost always involves something that didn’t really happen anyway
I don’t know anything about it,
do you reckon that waving criticisms off as 'almost always involving something that didn't really happen anyway' while not knowing anything about whats being criticised is a winning strategy, or that exclusively learning about the wholesome, sanitary parts of a persons actions, statements, ideals and beliefs is a healthy way to approach historical figures
heres some reading if youre interested, from a source youll probably actually appreciate
They sure do seem obsessed with misattributing that "million deaths is a statistic line" to him though
listen if all those unborn unconceived potential nazi children wanted grain they should have brought their own spoon
folks if you look below the post topic, but right above the comment box, you'll see
cross-posted to: memes@lemmygrad.ml memes@lemmy.ml
if you click one of them you'll go to the cross-posted post where you have the opportunity to respectfully engage with users whom may not know about the discussions we've had here.
Ah, so you are the guys sending in the political memes to memes@lemmy.ml now I'm not that suprised by the number of them anymore.
Me talking about stalin with other marxists: he did lots of good, did some bad, we should evaluate his actions and make sure to not repeat them, while keeping the actions that enabled numerous successes. *lists multiple fuckups stalin did with the chinese civilwar, tito-stalin split, homosexuality ban, etc)
Me when talking to Liberals about stalin: Stalin is my father and leader
A lot of liberals will actively support fascists if it means beating the evil leftists
nah, they hate the imagery of nazis (high school history and emergence of basic political ability), they don't really know enough of what fascism is to hate it in any other form.
Ukraine comes to mind
Ukraine has shown that liberals will actively cheer on fascists as soon as somebody gives them permission to do so.
He is also quoted as saying
Death solves all problems. No man, no problem.
True, Stalin was a more nuanced character that he is usually given credit for but he was still a paranoid and brutal man who was responsible for the deaths of a lot of innocent people.
Let's not fall into the trap of either lionizing or demonizing historical figures.
He is also quoted as saying [blahblahblahbollocksbollocksbollocks]
No he isn't. Maybe you should actually verify instead of spreading complete and utter bullshit with such confidence?
Let's not fall into the trap of either lionizing or demonizing historical figures.
Yet here we are, with you attempting to demonise a historic figure by spreading bullshit.
responsible for the deaths of a lot of innocent people.
Every single US president in world history is too. Every single supporter of capitalism is responsible for 100million deaths every 5 years, what's your point? You're making an emotional attempt to demonise in one breath while pretending otherwise in the next.
You're full of shit mate.
If you read my comment properly, I specifically said "he is quoted as saying ...", which is undeniably true.
Yet here we are, with you attempting to demonise a historic figure by spreading bullshit.
Saying that that Stalin was a brutal and paranoid man, amongst other things is a historically accurate statement.
If you think I'm promoting the standard, one dimensionals view that Stalin was evil incarnate, then you have completely failed to understand my point.
If you read my comment properly, I specifically said "he is quoted as saying ...", which is undeniably true.
Oh fuck off. Weasel words. How fucking slimey are you?
Saying that that Stalin was a brutal and paranoid man, amongst other things is a historically accurate statement.
Stalin was a soft kind grandpa compared to Lenin.
I like how the people actively pursuing plots against Stalin then also criticize him for being paranoid. I would be paranoid too if all of the richest people and institutions in the world were organizing nazi collaborator opposition against me.
like his best friend was killed by foreign agents, who wouldn't be paranoid to hell?
He is quoted as saying something he didn't say. It is undeniably true that words where put in his mouth
I think we get your point
@aleph@lemm.ee once said “I kick puppies for fun”.
Now, I’m clearly lying, but it would be hard to be argue that anyone claiming you’ve been quoted as being pro-puppy-kicking is anything but “undeniably true”, as you say.
You’d think anyone disputing that quote would clearly be disputing the accuracy of the quote itself rather than the fact that it was, indeed, quoted somewhere. But I guess not.
If you read my comment properly, I specifically said "he is quoted as saying ...", which is undeniably true.
Source where? I always have big doubt when someone claims very confidently something is undeniably true.
he never did, it's from a novel
This one
it predates every non-fiction instance of the phrase being used to my knowledge
This phrase is from the novel "Children of the Arbat" (1987) by Anatoly Naumovich Rybakov (1911 - 1998). This is how J.V. Stalin speaks about the execution of military experts in Tsaritsyn in 1918: “Death solves all problems. There is no person, and there is no problem. Later, in his “Novel-Memoir” (1997), A. Rybakov himself wrote that he “may have heard this phrase from someone, perhaps he came up with it himself.” That was the Stalinist principle. I just, briefly formulated it.
from here
Many biographers have cited it, including Simon Montefiore is his book The Red Tsar, which was very well researched and shows Stalin as multi-faceted and charismatic, albeit deeply flawed.
The idea that Stalin was brutal is ridiculous.
Um, have you ever read a book about the man? The Great Purges between 1936-1938 and his policies towards the Soviet peasantry are just two examples of his ruthlessness.
Ummm excuse me?) I'll have you know it's at least as well sourced and unbiased as Sir Richard Empire III's seminal works "Stalin: Inscrutable Asiatic Tyrant" and "Stalin, Hitler of the Caucasus"!!!
It is. You should read it.
Unless you think that anything less than a glowing account of Stalin in unacceptable, of course.
The title is literally comparing him to a monarch. I do not think it will be even handed.
Even the CIA dispels the notion of Stalin having absolute power as ridiculous propaganda that they cooked up
I'll listen to 1 hour of the audiobook and come back lol.
Update 1: immediately admitted to be written from the perspective of "personality" lol. Simon did a fuckin tarot card reading on Stalin's psychology to make this book
Post I made on what the hell "purging" meant in the Soviet Union
If anyone wants to do some light educational reading on the subject of Chiskas
The great purges removed undesirable elements from the CPSU.
Undesirable from Stalin's point of view, certainly.
You can’t name a single ill action taken towards Soviet peasants.Stalin brought them nothing but benefits
Hoo, boy. I would advise you to research how many people died during forced collectivization and how much death was caused by the confiscation of grain by the NKVD and the Red Army before you start making statements like that.
how much death was caused by the confiscation of grain by the NKVD and the Red Army
None. None was caused by this. The death was caused by the hoarding of it for profit. The confiscation was a response to that hoarding.
Hoarding for profit by the privileged farmers who had wage slaves while the peasants starved. (Just adding more context)
This theory is pretty roundly discredited in academia, though. The consensus view is that while there was a drought that lasted several years, the starvation that occured was exacerbated by the policies set by the Politburo, including:
Excessive quotas leading to the reduction in crop rotation and leaving land fallow, which in turn lead to weaker crop yields
The fall in livestock numbers following forced collectivization
Poor quality harvest resulting from an unsettled agriculture industry that resulted from political upheaval
So yes, nature itself was partly to blame but the refusal to deviate from the unrealistic goals set by the people in charge was the reason why the grain shortages and resulting famines were so much worse that they ought to have been.
You've missed out the main cause, which was a lack of oversight over figures that were being reported by the farms. They trusted the numbers they were being given which proved to be false reporting, which led to the incorrect quotas and crop rotation mistakes, which led to all the other mistakes.
This was a blunder that was corrected later (with extra third party checking of numbers). Solving it.
Keep in mind this was the very first time central planning had been applied to a task like this. The notion that the numbers reported would be wrong was not something anyone expected because there was no precedent to go on. All of these "incorrect policies" that you blame them for are a product of the incorrect figures that they had. Figures that were incorrect because kulaks were grain hoarding to sell for profit then reporting incorrect figures.
Are you telling me a group of men with an 1800s education didn't have the most up to date agricultural science? Sounds like the fault of the people who educated them to me.
So do you have a source on that Stalin quote or are you just uncomfortable with the affection for the USSR?
Asked and answered: I cited the specific book that referenced it, among others.
For the record, I am more than capable of recognizing the positive aspects of the USSR - I just don't like the simple-minded good vs bad binary thinking that often plagues these discussions.
Asked and answered: I cited the specific book that referenced it, among others.
You just waved a few titles around without actually citing evidence.
Evidence is when you type out directly the material you're talking about, followed by the source you got it from, the page(s) and paragraph(s).
You want an example of what actual quality citations look like please take a brief moment to read through some of the citations in this post
Edit: user I was replying to says they cited multiple sources. Just wanted to say they only cited one author - who's more a story-teller than a historian - while handwaving about "many authors saying it's true" without listing anyone. They completely rely on hearsay and vibes for evidence and not concrete source material for their worldview.
I am more than capable of recognizing the positive aspects of the USSR
Like what? You're only saying negatives. Let's get your positives.
I don't believe you've ever completed reading a book about any of these events, or even Soviet history in general honestly
I’m probably less enthused about Stalin than your average Hexbear user. While I’ll fully recognize Stalin’s faults and harmful actions, what bugs me about liberal “Stalin bad” takes is a refusal to acknowledge the objectively impossible problems the USSR had to address in the 20s and 30s. With the peasants, for example, you can’t just let them continue on with small plots and wooden tools. You do that and eventually the cities starve, industrialization never happens, and the Nazis steamroll them back past the Urals (killing tens of millions in the process). The rollout of collectivization was a shit show but it’s not unreasonable for a socialist country to push for collective ownership of land.
Kotkin's first volume on Stalin is a far better work that I'd recommend as far as biographies go. Kotkin is very obviously an anti-communist, but even a turbo Stalinite like Grover Furr finds few academic faults with that particular work. The other volumes are less stellar though.
There's also the recently authorized re-translation of Stalin: History and Critique of a Black Legend by Demenico Losurdo which has a free PDF available. It offers insight on a perspective of Stalin that seeks to de-mythologize the "monster."
As for Montefiore and authors of his ilk, I wouldn't rely too much on narratives spun by pop history writers and journalists.
Don't you find it a little strange that this short bit of quote is so often repeated but we never hear the context for it?
When you hear it out of context it sounds callous and cruel, but it would be a very different statement if (for example) he said it in response to finding out Hitler killed himself or that some enemy had died of cancer or something.
And that's not even taking into account the fact that it's inherently very suspicious that nobody seems to be able to produce a source for the original context and attribution of the quote.
Whether the quote is aprocyphal or not, it seems fitting because of the way Stalin dealt with political opponents. The list of early Bolsheviks were rounded up and shot during Stalin's purges is quite lengthy.
Let me just pop on my They Live sunglasses and give this post a reread
whether it’s true doesn’t matter because it fits my opinion of him
whether it’s true doesn’t matter because it fits
my opinion of himthe historical facts.
FTFY
No investigation, no right to speak. If you don't even have evidence he said it you're just working backwards to justify your conclusion, which is what every westerner is taught. If you don't have an actual source to cite don't be arrogant and just accept that you made a mistake.
you're just working backwards to justify your conclusion
And anyone who denies that the preponderance of evidence shows that Stalin was capable of considerable ruthlessness and brutality towards his own people is guilty of the same.
I'm not denying that at all. Ruthlessness and brutality are some editorialized words, but fair enough to describe the attitude the early Soviet Union had to assume to stomp out opportunists and reactionaries. Every single actually existing, surviving socialist state had to do something similar. The ones who didn't, like Allende and Arbenz, were swiftly dealt with by the reactionaries they treated with mercy which was not paid back.
whether it's true doesn't matter because it fits the historical facts.
... Wow
New site tagline just drop?
Whether the quote is aprocyphal or not, it seems fitting
Reread this again and again until it sinks in that you are making stuff up based on feelings. Facts don’t care about your feelings.
Edit: if you’re going to quote, at least put a fucking source. Right now you’re making shit up.
Hitler had one great idea.
On April 30th 1945, in the Führerbunker, in what one might call the greatest brainstorming in all of history.
There's something to be said for being so feared by one's enemy that they'd rather take themselves out than face you. I think that's a pretty good consolation prize.
Reminds me something I read long ago where (iirc) a western journalist asked a red army soldier what he would do if he got ahold of Hitler. The soldier replied that he'd heat up half an iron bar until red hot and then jam the cold side up Hitler's ass.
The journalist asked why the cold side.
The soldier replied plainly: so he couldn't pull it out.
Could be apocryphal but I always thought it was
Both kinda stopped themselves
This is what happens to your brain when you treat history as a vibe instead of a science.
Uhh no? Stalin died an old man after taking a backwards feudal peasant society into being the #2 world super power and first into space.
He tried to stop himself, 4 times he tried to resign. The party consistently voted against his resignation and would not allow it. Even Trotsky rejected his first attempt in May 1924 to resign from his positions at the 13th party congress.
1927 speech referencing it:
It is said that in that “will” Comrade Lenin suggested to the congress that in view of Stalin’s “rudeness” it should consider the question of putting another comrade in Stalin’s place as General Secretary. That is quite true.
Yes, comrades, I am rude to those who grossly and perfidiously wreck and split the Party. I have never concealed this and do not conceal it now. Perhaps some mildness is needed in the treatment of splitters, but I am a bad hand at that.
At the very first meeting of the plenum of the Central Committee after the Thirteenth Congress I asked the plenum of the Central Committee to release me from my duties as General Secretary. The congress itself discussed this question. It was discussed by each delegation separately, and all the delegations unanimously, including Trotsky, Kamenev and Zinoviev, obliged Stalin to remain at his post.
What could I do? Desert my post? That is not in my nature; I have never deserted any post, and I have no right to do so, for that would be desertion. As I have already said before, I am not a free agent, and when the Party imposes an obligation upon me, I must obey.
A year later I again put in a request to the plenum to release me, but I was again obliged to remain at my post. What else could I do?
Here is his second attempt August 19, 1924 (Grover Furr, Khrushchev Lied, p. 244):
To the Plenum of the CC [Central Committee] RCP [Russian Communist Party]
One and a half years of working in the Politburo with comrades Zinoviev and Kamanev after the retirement and then the death of Lenin have made perfectly clear to me the impossibility of honest, sincere political work with these comrades within the framework of one small collective. In view of which, I request to be considered as having resigned from the Pol[itcal] Buro of the CC.
I request a medical leave for about two months.
At the expiration of this period I request to be sent to Turukhansk region or to the Iakutsk oblast', or to somewhere abroad in any kind of work that will attract little attention.
I would ask the Plenum to decide all these questions in my absence and without explanations from my side, because I consider it harmful for our work to give explanations aside from those remarks that I have already made in the first paragraph of this letter.
I would ask comrade Kuibyshev to distribute copies of this letter to the members of the CC.
With com[munist] greet[ings], J. Stalin.
Third attempt December 27, 1926 (Grover Furr, Khrushchev Lied, p. 244):
To the Plenum of the CC [Central Committee] (to comrade Rykov). I ask that I be relieved of the post of GenSec [General Secretary] of the CC. I declare that I can work no longer in this position, I do not have the strength to work any more in this position. J. Stalin.
In his fourth attempt, upon rejection of the resignation by the party he attempts instead to abolish the role of General Secretary of the party altogether:
Stalin: Comrades! For three years [Suggesting there could be more resignation attempts unbeknownst to me - ZB] I have been asking the CC [Central Committee] to free me from the obligations of General Secretary of the CC. Each time the Plenum has refused me. I admit that until recently conditions did not exist such that the Party had need of me in this post as a person more or less severe, one who acted as a certain kind of antidote to the dangers posed by the Opposition. I admit that this necessity existed, despite comrade Lenin's well-known letter [Lenin's Testament - ZB], to keep me at the post of General Secretary. But these conditions exist no longer. They have vanished, since the Opposition is now smashed. It seems that the Opposition has never before suffered such a defeat since they have not only been smashed, but have been expelled from the Party. It follows that now no bases exist any longer that could be considered correct when the Plenum refused to honor my request and free me of the duties of General Secretary. Meanwhile you have comrade Lenin's directive which we are obliged to consider and which, in my opinion, it is necessary to put into effect. I admit that the Party was compelled to disregard this directive until recently, compelled by well-known conditions of inter-Party development. But I repeat that these conditions have now vanished and it is time, in my view, to take comrade Lenin's directive to the leadership. Therefore I request the Plenum to free me of the post of General Secretary of the Central Committee. I assure you, comrades, that the Party can only gain from doing this.
Dogadov: Vote without discussion.
Vorshilov: I propose we reject the announcement we just heard.
Rykov: We will vote without discsussion...We vote now on Stalin's proposal that he be freed from the General Secretaryship. Who is for this proposal? Who is against? Who abstains? One.
The proposal of comrade Stalin is rejected with one abstention.
Stalin: Then I introduce another proposal. Perhaps the CC [Central Committee] will consider it expedient to abolish the position of General Secretary. In our Party's history there have been times when no such post existed.
Voroshilov: We had Lenin with us then.
Stalin: We had no post of General Secretary before the 10th Congress.
Voice: Until the 11th Congress.
Stalin: Yes, it seems that until the 11th Congress we did not have this position. That was before Lenin stopped working. If Lenin concluded that it was necessary to put forward the question of founding the position of General Secretary, then I assume he was prompted by the special circumstances that appeared with us before the 10th Congress, when a more or less strong, well-organized Opposition within the Party was founded. But now we proceed to the abolition of this position. Many people associate a conception of some kind of special rights of the General Secretary with this position. I must say from my experience, and comrades will confirm this, that there ought not to be any special rights distinguishing the General Secretary from the rights of other members of the Secretariat.
Voice: And the duties?
Stalin: And there are no more duties than other members of the Secretariat have. I see it this way; There's the Politburo, the highest organ of the CC; there's the Secretariat, the executive organ consisting of five persons, and all these five members of the Secretariat are equal. That's the way the work has been carried out in practice, and the General Secretary has not had any special rights or obligations. The result, therefore, is that the position of General Secretary, in the sense of special rights, has never existed with us in practice, there has been only a collegium called the Secretariat of the CC. I do not know why we need to keep this dead position any longer. I don't even mention the fact that this position, called General Secretary, has occasioned in some places a series of distortions. At the same time that at the top no special rights or duties are associated with the position of General Secretary, in some places there have been some distortions, and in all the oblasts there is now a struggle over that position among comrades who call themselves secretaries, for example, in the national CCs. Quite a few General Secretaries have developed, and with them in the localities special rights have been associated. Why is this necessary?
Shmidt: We can dismiss them in the localities.
Stalin: I think the Party would benefit if we did away with the post of General Secretary, and that would give me the chance to be free from this post. This would be all the easier to do since according to the Party's constitution there is no post of General Secretary.
Rykov: I propose not to give comrade Stalin the possibility of being free from this position. As concerns the General Secretaries in the oblast and local organs, that should be changed, but without changing the situation in the CC. The position of General Secretary was created by the proposal of Vladimir Il'ich. In all the time since, during Vladimir Il'ich's life and since, this position has justified itself politically and completely in both the organizational and political sense. In the creation of this organ and in naming comrade Stalin to the post of General Secretary the whole Opposition also took part, all those whom we have now expelled from the Party. That is how completely without doubt it was for everyone in the Party (whether the position of General Secretary was needed and who should be the General Secretary). By which has been exhausted, in my opinion, both the question of the "testament" (for that point has been decided) and exhausted by the Opposition at the same time just as it has been decided by us as well. The whole Party knows this. What has changed now after the 15th Congress and why is it necessary to set aside the position of General Secretary.
Stalin: The Opposition has been smashed.
(A long discussion followed, after which:)
Voices: Correct! Vote!
Rykov: There is a proposal to vote.
Voices: Yes, yes!
Rykov: We are voting. Who is for comrade Stalin's proposal to abolish the post of General Secretary? Who is opposed? Who abstains? Noone.
There's also the interview between Stalin and Feuchtwanger where Feuchtwanger asks about the cult of personality and Stalin basically says that he rejects it, but the party doesn't care that he rejects it lol
Wow. Imagine having people for someone and encourage them to continue to lead despite them wanting to transfer power to another. Real anti-democratic totalitarian dictator hours.
Damn Stalin wanted to quit his job too but couldn't because of obligations? Post this shit to me_irl
No he didn’t, he was a nationalist crank who came into power because Germany was already really racist at the time. Anything he did or said, your racist uncle could have done it with a better haircut.
it is amazing to read Hitler and Stalin's writings back to back. Stalin was a legitimate proletarian intellectual. Hitler was a reactionary crank who internalized the entirety of world history as a race war. I would put some Hitler quotes side by side with Stalin quotes to make my point, but I don't want to stain Hexbear with Hitler's nonsense.
https://hexbear.net/pictrs/image/b911d835-9417-4e0e-a5d0-60580116b521.png
Said the guy in part famous for exporting all the bread there was in Ukraine to other parts of his empire.
And for my next act allow me to cite this Texas middle school textbook on the topic of slavery
Ok here's what happened: Nazis made propaganda to discredit their enemies and you believed that propaganda. Then you went on a website and showed everyone there what an idiot you are, not just because you believe the propaganda and take it as the default, but also because what you're asking for someone else to explain to you has already been discussed at length in this same thread.
A famine in a region where regular famines occurred every 5 years or so for the last 500 years. Avoidable, had mistakes not been made by central planning in that they trusted what kulaks were reporting as their grain figures and yields when the reality was that they were hoarding for private profit while reporting false figures. This error in oversight meant fields were assigned under yield and not enough was produced. Upon discovering this error was occurring it was swiftly and harshly stamped on by the deployment of the red army to seize hoarded grain, hoarders were executed.
It was the last famine the region ever had after hundreds of years of regular famines, with errors in the system being stamped out simply by having extra checks on numbers instead of trusting the farms in future.
It also did not solely occur in Ukraine. It occurred across the Soviet Union, heavily affecting Poland and Kazakh too, but is not the subject of a persistent campaign to label it genocide propaganda there by literal actual nazis spreading the double genocide myth.
This indeed sounds intresting, I might look into it. In the meantime thank you for your answer.
The primary thing to keep in mind here is that nobody denies that a famine occurred. The region was plagued with them for hundreds of years and the socialists were implementing a new method of production that was ultimately experimental and without any historic precedent from which to learn from. The mistakes that were made in its implementation did lead to an avoidable famine had those mistakes not been made. The question at hand is truly just whether this famine was intentional or not. Very little evidence for its intent exists, both in the soviet archives and in any outside evidence.
I strongly recommend reading the Preface to the Revised Edition of The Years of Hunger: Soviet Agriculture, 1931-1933 by RW Davies and Wheatcroft, two extremely well regarded academic historians. It is a good insight into how this was regarded as absurd by academia, and has been manufactured for political purposes over time. I will quote some of this preface below:
PREFACE TO REVISED EDITION
Since this book was completed, the Soviet famine of 1931–33 has become an international political issue. Following a number of preliminary declarations and a vigorous campaign among Ukrainians in Canada, in November 2006 a bill approved by the Ukrainian parliament (Verkhovna rada) stated that the famine was ‘an act of genocide against the Ukrainian people’. In the following year a three-day event commemorating the famine in Ukraine was held in its capital, Kiev, and at the same time Yushchenko, the president, called on the Ukrainian parliament to approve ‘a new law criminalising Holodomor denial’ – so far without success.1 Then on May 28, 2008, the Canadian parliament passed a bill that recognised the Holodomor as a genocide and established a Ukrainian Famine and Genocide (‘Holodomor’) Memorial Day. Later in the year, on October 23, 2008, the European parliament, without committing itself to the view of the Ukrainian and Canadian parliament that the famine was an act of genocide, declared it was ‘cynically and cruelly planned by Stalin’s regime in order to force through the Soviet Union’s policy of collectivization of agriculture’. In the following month, on the 75th anniversary of what it described as ‘the famine-genocide in Ukraine’, the Ukrainian Canadian Congress held a widely publicised National Holodomor Awareness Week.
This campaign is reinforced by extremely high estimates of Ukrainian deaths from famine. On November 7, 2003, a statement to the United Nations General Assembly by 25 member-countries declared that ‘the Great Famine of 1932–1933 in Ukraine (Holodomor) took from 7 million to 10 million innocent lives’. According to Yushchenko, Ukraine ‘lost about ten million people as a direct result of the Holodomor-genocide’. The President of the Ukrainian World Congress insisted in a statement to the United Nations that ‘a seven–ten million estimate appears to present an accurate picture of the number of deaths suffered by the Ukrainian nation from the Great Famine (Holodomor) of 1932–33’.2 In contrast, the Russian government has consistently objected to the Ukrainian view. On April 2, 2008, a statement was approved by the Russian State Duma declaring that there was no evidence that the 1933 famine was an act of genocide against the Ukrainian people. The statement condemned the Soviet regime’s ‘disregard for the lives of people in the attainment of economic and political goals’, but also declared that ‘there is no historic evidence that the famine was organized on ethnic grounds’. The official view was endorsed by the Russian archives, and by Russian historians. In 2009 the Russian Federal Archive Agency published a large handsome book reproducing photographically 188 documents from the archives, to be followed by several further volumes.3 In the preface the director of the Russian archives, V. P. Kozlov, criticises the ‘politicisation’ of the famine:
Not even one document has been found confirming the concept of a ‘golodomor-genocide’ in Ukraine, nor even a hint in the documents of ethnic motives for what happened, in Ukraine and elsewhere. Absolutely the whole mass of documents testify that the main enemy of Soviet power at that time was not an enemy based on ethnicity, but an enemy based on class.4
In our own work we, like V. P. Kozlov, have found no evidence that the Soviet authorities undertook a programme of genocide against Ukraine. It is also certain that the statements by Ukrainian politicians and publicists about the deaths from famine in Ukraine are greatly exaggerated. A prominent Ukrainian historian, Stanislas Kul’chitskii, estimated deaths from famine in Ukraine at 3–3.5 million;5 and Ukrainian demographers estimate that excess deaths in Ukraine in the whole period 1926–39 (most of them during the famine) amounted to 31⁄2 million.6 Nevertheless, Ukrainian organisations continue, with some success, to urge Canadian schools to teach as a fact that excess deaths were 10 million during the 1932–33 famine.7 This does not mean that Ukraine did not suffer greatly during the famine. It is certainly the case that most of the famine deaths took place in Ukraine, and that the grain collection campaign was associated with the reversal of the previous policy of Ukrainisation.8 In this context Russian interpretations of the famine differ greatly. At one extreme doughty supporters of the Stalinist regime claim that the famine was an act of nature for which Stalin and the Soviet government were not responsible. Thus in his recent book on the famine a Russian publicist, a certain Sigizmund Mironin, argued that the very poor harvest of 1932 was the main cause of the famine:
Using the articles of M.Tauger and other English-language sources, I seek to prove: 1) there was a very bad harvest in 1932, which led to the famine; 2) the bad harvest was caused by an unusual combination of causes, among which drought played a minimum role, the main role was played by plant diseases, unusually widespread pests, and the lack of grain connected with the drought of 1931, and rain during the sowing and harvesting; 3) the bad harvest led to a severe famine ... 4) the Soviet leadership, and Stalin in particular, did not succeed in receiving information about the scale of the famine; 5) Stalin and the Politburo, as a result of the drought in 1931, did not have grain stocks, but did everything they could to reduce human losses from the famine, and took every measure to prevent famine from recurring.9
This view of the famine is emphatically and justifiably rejected by most Russian historians. We show in the following pages that there were two bad harvests in 1931 and 1932, largely but not wholly a result of natural conditions. But the 1932 harvest was not as bad as Mark Tauger has concluded (see pp. xix–xx below). Stalin was certainly fully informed about the scale of the famine. Moreover, Mironin’s account neglects the obvious fact that the famine was also to a considerable extent a result of the previous actions of Stalin and the Soviet leadership. Mironin’s book is Stalinist apologetics, not history. Unfortunately this approach to the Stalin era is increasingly publicised in contemporary Russia.
“But this would mean that I was wrong, and I, the main character of the universe, cannot be wrong. What do you think about that, tankie?”
No, that’s not how it works. You were the one that made the claim Stalin “exported all of his bread to other parts of his empire”, so the burden of proof is on you. Show us.
I don't intend to prove it as I'm not here to convince you. I just have a certain point of view, which I shared as it seemed as an apptopriate comment on the post. Now that you present me an alternative narrative, I'm intrested to learn what it is, and as I do not intend to prove mine, you don't have to prove your's either. We just have to converse, and that too only if you want to.
Your 'view' is just wrong though. The opening of the Soviet archives has confirmed that the USSR sent significant aid to the famine stricken areas.
https://old.archives.gov.ua/Sections/Famine/Publicat/Fam-Pyrig-1933.php#nom-159
`№ 159 RESOLUTION OF THE PYATYKHATSK SOWING COMMITTEE OF THE DNIPROPETROV Oblast ON PROVIDING FOOD AID TO THOSE IN ACUTE NEED TO KOLHOSPAM AND KOLHOSPNIK
February 7, 1933
- Instruct the district department and district supply department to distribute the food loan in relation to the number of people and crops on collective farms in such a way that the sowing committee has at its disposal a reserve of 10% of this amount, and this 10% will also have to be distributed among collective farms, based on the needs of individual collective farms and collective farmers.
- From the available loan of 12 thousand pounds of corn in grain, it is considered necessary to provide urgent assistance to the following collective farms:
Moreover, the indicated 8.3 tons are not taken into account in the calculation of these collective farms in the overall distribution of food loans.
- Due to the fact that there is a large number of detected cases of swelling in the area, that the area was not sufficiently informed about this and that the assistance provided is insufficient, instruct Comr. Kudrinsky and Salip should write a memorandum to the regional CP(b)U about the current situation and ask the regional sowing committee to provide additional food assistance.
The chairman of the sowing committee Hryshchenko
Partarch of the Dnipropetrovsk Regional Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine. F. 19. Op. 1. Ref. 874. Ark. AND. `
Libs really do just come in here, parrot literal Nazi propaganda, hand us a fuckin' assignment to prove it wrong, then just leave without saying anything else after being discredited with several sources cited, over and over again.
the proplem with the metaphorical 'small people' is that they are in denial about beeing small people , so a obstacle that a tall person can easly cross ("Oh so i have been bambozzeled to a degree") appears daunting and endless to them ... for us it is easy because we are "tall" , for @halvar@lemm.ee it is daunting because he entered the dark site of town riding his high horse ,the horse then instantly died and the now obviously pretty small and helpless Halvar is running out of here it as fast as his littl legs can carry him .. maybe he will return someday .. humble and interested. Or will he preach of our barbarism in polite Society? - "Can you belive it ? they mistrust our exaclted Majestic Patron there ? !
to return , he obviously needs to grow , how do we messure that ... Obviously by his ability to cross without the help of a high horse , lifting him from the ground.. and then we can all be like ..
"look how much youve grown ! we proud of you!"
You don't intend to prove it as you literally can't because you didn't plan on being expected to. Don't try to pull bs on people here. This isn't Reddit where people with the same viewpoint will updoot you anyway no matter what the facts say.
If you're actually interested in knowing the full story of this western narrative then you're free to ask but when you make a snarky remark like that you'll be confronted about your standpoint and expected to back it up, and trust me when I say we have enough liberals coming in here dropping some regurgitated talking point thinking it's a mic drop moment only to falter when confronted.
I don't intend to do so, because even if I wanted I couldn't convince you, because you clearly made up your mind, and I don't have the time or indeed the knowladge to do so. I left a comment with what I consider my best knowladge, you guys took it as an invitation to battle. I then asked you what is your viewpoint, knowing that I can't change it, just like you most likely can't change mine, but regardless I was still intrested. Then somehow I'm a lib who shall be burned at stake.
I haven't made up my mind, but someone up above commented that theres no evidence that grain distribution was coordinated along ethnic lines, and the longer that thought sits with me, the more and more I'm convinced that this wasn't a genocide.
You've been presented with a falsifiable statement. If it is indeed false, it will be trivial to win this argument now. Is it?
oh , so suddenly all your Thunder is gone .. Damn .. howdid that happen.. ? Not that you build your identiy on "repeating uncriticly what authority tells me about their enemies "
because this worldview/ Identiy will run into obvious limitations .. I advise against it.. its detremetal to your Social Standing .. next time do
"I heard that he did X , whats up with that accusation"
No he didn't export it, he fed it to the cows which he then had slaughtered and exported to his favorite pal in Germany: Hitler. This was all written in the Molotov-Ribbentrop Nazi accords. mOLOtov is where hOLOdomor comes from, with the Do Mor referencing the desire to do more genocide
As far as I know that is the truth, but portraying him as devil himself while not doing the same with who ever did the same to Ireland does not seam consistent.
What actions are you upset about? Taking a society from fuedal conditions to the space age? Or defeating facsim?
Specifically, one guy saying one thing AFTER doing the opposite. (See: Ukrainian Famine 1932)
he said this in an interview in 1936. https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1936/03/01.htm
It's still a good idea. Also, Stalin is still a fucking travesty of a human, as is everyone who enabled him.
The famine being a genocide was misinfo spread by nazi publications such as hearst press. The misinfo was used as justification for murdering Jewish people as "soviet collaborators"
It doesn't matter if he personally loved every single Ukrainian that died, the fact is that even if you believe everything that was done to mitigate it was a best effort, and that everything that led to the union at large being essentially helpless to feed its people was an accident, it still paints the picture of a big talker that managed a country into the ground.
At best, in the most forgiving light, Stalin was an incompetent head of state, regardless of how smart he was, and was responsible for a lot of people who died reaching out their hands begging for help while he pulled out his pockets and shrugged. And that would have been the end of it, but no, he goes and waxes poetically about how starving people don't have freedom while the graves are still fresh.
Uh huh so by your logic then every world leader that exists, has existed, and will exist is a genocidal monster on the same level of Stalin because there's always some form of poverty in the world.
At least you're consistent with your dumb take.
it still paints the picture of a big talker that managed a country into the ground.
I suppose if you squint at it and ignore all the other stuff sure? But the problems with famine relief were mainly local and partially caused by kulak sabotage (and they bragged about how effective that sabotage was, you can look it up), when the central committee understood the extent of the problem measures were quickly taken.
If we look at other facts though, like how successful collective farming was at breaking the cycle of famine and how rapidly the Soviets were able to industrialize, quick enough to defeat nazi-ism lose 1/6 of their population in the fight and still make it to space before anyone else, it paints a much better picture of the competence of soviet democratic economic management.
managed a country into the ground
From 1928 to 1939 (the period of full planning pre-war) industrial output increased 350%.
In addition civil war, kulaks burning food, imperfect management science (Taylorism which had problems with adjusting controlling to the reality on the ground), natural disasters and bad climate for crops. For example even when harvest was going on in plenty of areas the weather was too damp to gather crops at the ideal point in time which greatly diminishes your harvest. The same process could be seen this year in Europe.
The UK did embargo the Soviet Union till Lenin's NEP and similar things did happen regularly, this means that international finance and industrial capital would've often sought other countries in which they didn't have to fear such things, too. This means that the Soviet Union had to try to generate capital from other sources and those are the the surplus of the working class or the savings of people (vs. consumption).
Do you honestly believe, that had he run out of warm bodies, he would have thrown himself at the Nazis next?
Run out of warm bodies? Are you on some ruzzian orcs only human wave tactics, no rifle one bullet shit?
The Red Army won the war
When the Nazis were on the outskirts of Moscow, Stalin stood his ground alongside the entire Soviet leadership as the city faced what possibly would've been its last moments.
He was literally so close to the front lines the NKVD had to make sure he didn't accidentally enter any of the minefields that were set up in the city when he took his walks through the city to review the defenses or to go back to his apartment.
Even funnier, or not - it depends I guess - is that I know this because Beria joked about how easy it was for him to assassinate Stalin during the war while the Nazis were outside of Moscow by simply letting him step on a mine.
I don't blame trump for COVID, but I do blame him for the piss poor response and unnecessary deaths that could have been prevented were it not for willful mismanagement, blatant ignorance, and a cabinet woefully unprepared to deal with a megalomaniac hell bent on letting karma motorboat through a demographic he didn't find any value in.
Sounds pretty familiar yeah?
I know this nerd has been banned, but for posterity I'll point out that the circumstances were completely fucking different.
COVID in America: you have a 21st century nation with internet, global trade, well-established information and logistics networks, clear understanding of the extent and nature of the threat, most of the world's top universities and biomedical research labs, you have fucking hundreds of thousands of people with lifelong specialist training in science, technology, emergency response, public messaging, and any other conceivable discipline relevant to managing a fucking pandemic, and you have all the money on earth to give them.
Soviet famine: you have a rural post-revolutionary state still racing to industrialize and prepare for war, still mostly uneducated and illiterate, no foreign trade, extremely rudimentary information and logistics networks, no way to establish any sort of responsive feedback control loop to manage the situation, and no way to fucking conjure more food out of the ground. There's no n95 to hand out, no stipend to stay home, no social distancing, no vaccine. All you can do is spread the scraps around and keep the farmers farming and workers working.
Do you want s conversation about this or are you coming set in your ways? That way, we can either talk about your unfounded position or shame will be the best option moving forward on this topic
Those are just facts. He did a lot of horrid shit. Sending a fuckload of people to clog up the Nazi meat grinder with their bodies isn't heroism, it's the last desperate act of someone trying to save their own ass.
The Russians that died in the city Stalin named after himself are the heroes who defeated Fascism.
Sending a fuckload of people to clog up the Nazi meat grinder with their bodies isn't heroism
Except that is just the "mongol horde" myth spread by the nazis. The soviet military was a modern military which fought as a modern military. The "not one step back" order was directed at higher officers who favored unnecessary withdrawals at the expense of ceding territory that the nazis would start exterminating and of leaving the flanks of other army formations vulnerable.
Lmao you literally believe nazi propaganda if you're doing "Enemy At The Gates" level assertions of what the war of the Eastern Front was like
Jesus Christ your example is the single most impressive war in history(edit: actually don't wanna take away from the Korean comrades or Angolan comrades or vietnamese comrades, they also did amazing) and blaming the General leading it for not being one of the soldiers?? Fuck me, that's such a terrible example. I'm one of the 70-30 good-bad people on Stalin, which is about 50 percent better than any westen leader ever. But you chose like the literal best thing he ever did that can be attributed at least significantly to him.
He managed to not only keep the Germans waiting too long (where soviets were then able to build up their military during the war to lead to their success) but also pull the rest of the world into the war to their assistance (diplomacy and manoeuvering). Otherwise I don't think western countries would've actually stopped the Nazi's tbh, or even tried to help.
Of course the millions of dead soviets did the work and died under Stalin. And the rest of the population was saved by the sacrifice and Stalin mourned and celebrated them despite not being on the front lines.
Of course the millions of dead soviets did the work and died under Stalin. And the rest of the population was saved by the sacrifice and Stalin mourned and celebrated them despite not being on the front lines.
Stalin did went to the front lines multiple times though https://www.rbth.com/history/336242-stalin-front-wwii
You're right, I took too much credit from him. I guess I meant he never put himself into the situations where death was a 70% certainty like many Soviet soldiers heroically did. But good leadership also means living and being commander when you might not even want to (referring to Stalin wanting to end his position)